Say there was a bottle found in a desk, and the PCs wanted to know what it was. I, as the DM, know exactly what's in there, but don't want to just say "You've found yourselves a single dose of wyvern poison."
They took skills for a reason, and I need to know how to use them to identify such things.
At first glance it looks like a Perception (taste) -- DC equal to the save DC. Would probably give them a slightly modified Fortitude save (can't have them wandering around licking things all willy nilly without some repercussions).
Would this be the proper way to do it? Haven't found anything concrete in the PF rulebook.
My gf just DM'd this earlier tonight - Craft(Alchemy) check of 15 + Poison "level" (it's in the PFRPG stats, at least currently), similar to Appraising a magic item to identify it with detect magic.
I could see a Perception(taste) check to do the same, possibly 10 + level, with a +4 on the save, or 15 or 20 + without a save.
Maybe an Appraise check (actually that would be the only "in the rules" method). Craft (Poison) if you use a skill like that, probably at 10+level.
This is a very interesting question.
As for using Perception (taste), sure, that makes sense. But what DC? Equal to the Save DC is a great idea, mechaniceally sound from a gamist POV, but doesn't hold much water in a realism POV.
If someone with no skill, no feat, no hint of an ability to use or recognize poisons in any way were to taste a vial of Wyvern venom and a vial of arsenic, how would he be more likely to recognize the arsenic?
I wouldn't. But then, I know nothing of real poisons.
In fact, IRL, I once moved into an old house, back when I was a teenager, and I found an old glass vial in the basement, no label, no identifying marks, stoppered with a weathered old cork. The vial was small, small enough I could close my hand around it and it wouldn't be visible.
True story.
Even then I loved D&D, and I felt like an adventurer who just found some mysterious potion in a dungeon. So I popped the cork and sniffed it. It was pungent, kind of sweet smelling, almost flowery, but not enough to be perfume. The liquid inside was almost clear, slightly brown and cloudy.
I put just a couple drops on my finger tip. It was a little oily, but mostly felt just like water. Maybe soapy water.
It didn't burn or sting my finger, so I guess acid (not the drug, acid, but actual acids) was ruled out.
So I tasted it. Like any good adventurer would. I licked that drop off of my finger.
Wow, was it bitter. Awful. Yuck!
To this day, I still don't know what that was, despite showing it around to parents, grandparents, and taking it to my science teacher at school.
And I don't think an untrained adventurer would have fared any better, be it a potion, a poison, or a bottle of shoe polish.
Based on that, I might rule out Perception (taste) or any other kind of Perception.
Which takes me back to the idea that, to identify a poison, someone must have training to make/use poisons, or else it's just some weird-tasting stuff in a vial.
Wasn't there once a feat to use poisons? Where did that go? If we bring that back, I might rule that having the feat would allow a Perception (taste) to identify a poison.
Otherwise, we might have to fall back on Craft (alchemy) to cover this.
Unfortunately, poisons have been a weakness of the 3.5 system, and Pathfinder doesn't seem to have shored up that weakness any.
As for me, as a DM, I've pretty much told players to forget about using poisons. Poisoning an orc takes longer and costs more than just killing it with a sword or arrow. Poisoning a giant is silly. Poisoning a demon or dragon is even sillier. In fact, anything the PCs might want to use poison against is likely immune, resistant, or has a decent enough save to call the tactic into question.
Except against other people. Now those you can poison.
But who wants to poison a farmer, or a street vendor, or an inn keeper?
Poisoning the wealthy, the nobles, anyone who makes a likely target for assassination, would be silly since anyone you might want to assassinate via poison probably has 50gp worth of Antitoxin or 280gp to pay a cleric for a Neutralize Poison spell.
The truly juicy targets, such as kings, religious leaders, prophets, etc., are probably all very well invested in Periapts of Proof Against Poison (27,000 GP is nothing to the treasury of a kingdom).
For those less wealthy, but still wealthy enough to fear assassination, Restorative Ointment costs 4,000 GP for five doses and cures any poison or disease and applies a Cure Light Wounds in the process.
Given the ease with which any respectable target can prevent death/impairment by poison, it's not likely that assassins even bother.
Even worse, in 3.x, poisons were made almost useless. Fort negates. Failed save means the foe loses a few points of an ability score, which might soften them up a bit, but for the cost, is an incredibly expensive and inefficient tactic for adventurers to use, and even less efficient as a means of murder, since there are almost no poisons in the game that can kill anyone who is even remotely healthy.
So assassins are poisoning anyone, adventurers aren't poisoning anyone, and the average Joe-commoner can't likely afford the price of any resonably effective poison, even to kill his neighbor's barking dog.
Nobody is poisoning anyone.
Which means alchemists who want to make a quick buck selling poisons will find very few customers.
Which means adventurers won't usually find poisons laying around, since nobody bothers to use them or make them.
All of which means, in my game, the only poisons are those naturally produced, like when a wyvern/scorpion/imp/bee/etc. stings you. It's been many years since anyone in a game I have DMed has even seen a bottle of any kind of poison.
That's my take.
But if you want to use them, then it seems a new Craft (poisons) skill (houserule) might be called for, or roll it up into Craft (alchemy), and I would suggest that both making and identifying poisons would be based off of this skill rather than Perception.
Craft (alchemy) it is.
